checking out me history

• Author's name


  John Agard
• 1949


  when John Agard was born
• John Agard's country of birth


  Guyana, South America
• 1977


  when Agard moved to Britain
• common topics in John Agard's poetry


  ethnicity and identity, challenging social observation mixed with imagination and humour
• colonialism definition


  the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically
• eurocentric definition


  focusing on European culture or history to the exclusion of a wider view of the world; implicitly regarding European culture as pre-eminent
• pre-eminent


  surpassing all others; very distinguished in some way.
• Christopher Columbus


  Known as 'the man who discovered America', Columbus was trying to find a westward sea passage to the Orient (The East) when he landed in the New World (the Americas) in 1492
• John Agard and his scepticism about how history is taught


  he read in a history textbook how West Indian history began in 1492 with the arrival of Columbus, and this made think about how education has a Euro-centric view: nothing exists until the Europeans have entered the arena.
• John Agard and the subjective nature of history


  He came to believe that the retelling of History depends on who is telling the story.
• Guyana as a British colony


  Guyana was a British colony from the 1700s to 1966
• colonial history of Guyana


  Guyana was colonised, at first by the Dutch, but then the British took over
• what the British used Guyana for

  sugarcane production
• how the British maintained the sugarcane workforce

  they imported African slaves
• John Agard's school years


  A European style of education was enforced in Guyana until the end of British colonial rule in 1966
• publishing context


  published in a collection entitled Half-Caste and Other Poems (2007), a mixture of old and new poems
• main concerns of the collection entitled Half-Caste and Other Poems (2007)


  concerned with the theme of race and cultural identity
• how colonialists are presented as heroes

  for example, American history books are full of heroic stories of the early settlers and how they struggled to build 'the greatest nation of earth' and where the Native American people were little more than tragic and unfortunate bystanders in the America story
• the common pattern of the reality of colonialism

  dactylic dimeter, systematic repetitions, the rhyme scheme and Biblical allusions help the reader empathise with the soldiers by recreating the scene of the battle in the minds of the reader
• the process of European colonialism

  The same process of colonialism can found in Africa where wealthy European nations like England, France, Spain, Holland and Belgium sought to exploit the natural resources, slave labour and precious minerals found in these countries
• how European colonialism spread

  New technologies allowed European imperialism to spread very quickly
• the effects of colonialism


  today it is hard to find a developing country that has not be affected by colonialism
• central theme in 'Checking out Me History'


  personal identity and the power to shape an understanding of who you are
• main idea behind the poem

  the speaker was taught British history and childish nursery rhymes but about his Caribbean roots
• how those in power shape understanding


  we can see the poem in terms of how those in power use that power to shape our understanding of something such as our identity
• we have the power to power shape our own understanding


  the poem also explores how the individual has the power to shape his own understanding, especially of his identity
• propaganda definition


  information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view
• theme of propaganda


  because the poem discusses how colonial rule enforced a eurocentric style of education, 'Checking out me History' can also be seen in terms of the theme of propaganda
• effects of propaganda


  changes how the public views issues as history
• subjective definition


  based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions
• the subjectiveness of history


  Agard came to believe that the retelling of history depends on who is telling the story - history rarely offers us 'facts' about the past and it is important to remember that history is often written by the victors or 'winners
• race


  the poem tells a story about how the history of one race was hidden by colonial rulers in order to disconnect them from their identity
• colonialism


  Colonialism often tells two stories, which is perhaps why Agard gives the poem a dual structure
• the two stories of colonialism

  the poem's dual structure perhaps reflects the two sides of the story of colonialism, the story of the colonist (those taking over) and that of the colonised (those who were already there)
• loss of history due to colonialism

  many of those people who were colonised saw their homes, history and culture swallowed up by the new colonial culture; over time these people have lost their rightful place in history; they have quite literally been rubbed out of the history books, often at the end of gun or hangman's rope
• self-knowledge


  the poem appears to ask how can you know who you are without knowing your own history?
• personal responsibility to carve out identity


  Agard emphasises a personal responsibility to 'carve out' his own identity after concluding that his real identity has been intentionally hidden from him
• rejection of convention


  the poem rejects almost all the conventions on language and poetry, using dialectical non-standard English and a hybrid poetic form to establish a unique identity for the poem
• rebellion


  writing in dialectical non-standard English can be seen as a form of rebellion against the use of the colonialists' accepted form of English; additionally, the entire poem is built on a 'me' vs 'dem' structure and rebellious tone